Humans have yet to set foot on Mars, but one British woman already wants to be the first to give birth on the red planet.
Maggie Lieu, 24, is an astrophysics Ph. D. candidate at Birmingham University. She is also one of 600 people being considered for the Mars One project, which hopes to set up a permanent colony on Mars by 2025.
Lieu will find out next month if she will join 39 other people who will actually train for the one-way trip to the red planet.
If Lieu makes it to Mars, she plans to get busy colonizing the planet.
February 5th, 2015
Maggie Lieu Wants To Be First Woman To Give Birth On Mars The Huffington Post
October 17th, 2014
How To Watch That ‘Once-In-A-Lifetime’ Comet Swing By Mars The Huffington Post
A comet will be swinging by Mars this Sunday, and eager astronomers say they’re ready for the “once-in a lifetime event.”
Comet C/2013 A1, or ‘Siding Spring’ will make its closest approach to Mars at 2:27 p.m. EDT, coming within 87,000 miles of the red planet’s surface . That’s 16 times closer than any comet has ever come near Earth and less than half the distance from Earth to the moon.
“This is a cosmic science gift that could potentially keep on giving, and the agency’s diverse science missions will be in full receive mode,” John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C., said in a written statement. “This particular comet has never before entered the inner solar system, so it will provide a fresh source of clues to our solar system’s earliest days.”
NASA will be tracking the spectacular flyby with a massive fleet of spacecraft and Earth-based telescopes.
June 27th, 2014
Congressman Posey: We Need Neil DeGrasse Tyson To Get People Excited About Going To Mars The Huffington Post
House lawmakers met Wednesday to tackle a daunting task: how to keep Congress committed to investing hundreds of billions of dollars into a decades-long plan to send humans to Mars.
A manned mission to Mars has long been the stuff of science fiction, but it’s one of NASA’s biggest projects as part of its larger goal of laying the groundwork for permanent human settlements in the solar system. William Gerstenmaier, an associate administrator at NASA, told a Senate committee in April that the agency is currently focused on intermediate space missions but hopes to build up to long-duration space travel.
But if humans are ever going to reach Mars, a panel told the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, it’s going to require steadfast public enthusiasm, the support of multiple presidential administrations, international cooperation, private sector involvement and, perhaps most challenging, a bipartisan agreement in Congress to keep funding the venture for at least another 30 years.
July 26th, 2013
Why Space Architecture Matters If You Want to Go to Mars The Huffington Post
Mars is a destination that seems inevitable for human exploration. We have seen a number of intriguing signs from our series of robotic probes that Mars was once a very different world than it is today. Still, even cold and dry though it now is, it remains a place where humans can go and exist with only some help from life support systems. However, the sheer distances involved, coupled with the combination of moderately strong gravity and a very thin atmosphere make Mars a challenging place to get to. That is why the mission architecture selected does matter.
February 21st, 2013
Americans Support Humans to Mars The Huffington Post
A new national poll released two weeks ago helped to characterize the level of American support for Mars exploration. In these complex times, are Americans in favor of human exploration of the Mars? The answer is an unequivocal YES.
Basically over 70 percent of “the” Americans believe that we should send humans to Mars to explore the planet, and that it is ok to spend up to one percent of the federal budget on NASA (over twice the agency’s current budget) to do so.
February 15th, 2013
Mars Colonization Poll Finds 7 Percent Would Volunteer For One-Way Mission To Red Planet The Huffington Post
If you were offered a one-way trip to Mars, without the possibility of a return to Earth, would you take it?
If so, you’re in the minority. Only 7 percent of Americans say they would definitely take the opportunity to go on a one-way trip to a Mars colony, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll.
Another recent survey, this one conducted by Phillips & Company for Explore Mars and Boeing, found that Americans are somewhat more optimistic about the possibility of a human at least setting foot on Mars within their lifetime. That poll found that 67 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “I am confident humans will go to Mars in my lifetime.”
January 3rd, 2013
Mars Rover Anniversary: NASA’s ‘Spirit,’ ‘Opportunity’ Robots Mark Nine Years On Red Planet The Huffington Post
As the world rang in the Near Year this this week, NASA was looking forward to a big milestone of its own — nine years and counting on the surface of Mars for an overachieving Red Planet rover mission.
The golf-cart-size Spirit rover landed on Mars on Jan. 3, 2004, PST. Its twin, Opportunity, touched down at another Martian locale three weeks later, joining Spirit on a 90-day quest to search for signs of past water activity on the Red Planet. Together, the two robots make up the Mars Exploration Rover mission, the precursor to the huge Mars rover Curiosity, which arrived at the planet last August.
The two NASA robots found plenty of such evidence, helping scientists confirm that Mars — now a frigid and seemingly bone-dry place — was warmer and wetter billions of years ago. Spirit even stumbled onto an ancient hydrothermal system, where heat energy and liquid water may have created conditions capable of supporting life as we know it.
Both rovers kept on chugging long after their warranties expired. Spirit finally stopped communicating with Earth in March 2010 and was declared dead a year later. Opportunity is still going strong, exploring clay deposits on the rim of Mars’ Endeavour Crater.
June 5th, 2012
Mars One: Dutch Startup Aims To Colonize Red Planet In 2023 The Huffington Post
Bored with talk about building a lunar colony? A Dutch startup that goes by the name Mars One says it will establish a colony on Mars by 2023, according to the Mars One website. In 2022, a crew of four will embark on a seven-month flight to the Red Planet–and stay there for the rest of their lives, according to the website. A new team will make the trip every two years, enabling the colony to grow.